Ten suggested interventions to prevent military suicides

DSM5 in Distress
The DSM's impact on mental health practice and research
by Allen Frances, M.D.
The Epidemic of Suicide in the Military
Ten suggested interventions

Published on September 19, 2012 by Allen J. Frances, M.D. in DSM5 in Distress With understandable urgency, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has made suicide one of his top priorities, instructing commanders at all levels to feel acutely accountable for it.

The numbers are startling. On average, one active duty soldier is committing suicide each day, twice the number of combat deaths and twice the civilian rate. Suicides have jumped dramatically since 2005 and increased by 18 percent in just the last year.

The DOD and VA are groping for explanations and plans of action—clearly, just commanding the commanders to prevent suicide can't possibly do very much. And sadly, psychiatry has no ready or certain answers, no sure way to predict or prevent suicide.

Research in this area has huge methodological problems and is unlikely to bear any low-hanging fruit. So we may have to rely on obvious, common sense suggestions:
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